Alex Lella's Blog

Regrets

So the next question is what do I regret the most.

This is another one where it's hard to know where to start, but okay.

I remember one day in March of 1987, I was in the seventh grade. Gym class had just ended, and we went into the Boys' locker room where a group of other boys started making fun of me. I wish that I had just gone about my business, but I snapped.

I went after one of those boys and attacked him. Then another boy tried to break up the fight, but I was so angry that I attacked him.

After it ended, I tried to just go to my next period, but a teacher stopped me in the hall and said that I was to come with him to the office. At first, when I was sitting in the office, I felt kind of good. For a long time, I had put up with this madness from the other kids at school, but now I was finally getting a chance to tell my story and maybe someone would get into trouble for it.

But then when the assistant prinipal called me into his office, I realized it wasn't like that. I was the one in trouble. The principal told me that I was suspended for the next day, and that the school psychologist would be calling my parents to figure out what to do with me.

Suspended? That was something that only happened to really bad kids, and all through Elementary school, I had been one of the good kids.

Of course, everyone at school talked about the incident for weeks afterwards, but it was actually worse when my parents ended up sending me to a psychologist for the next two years. (It didn't really help.)

So, in many ways, I wish that I had not thrown that punch that day in the locker room, even though it doesn't affect me anymore, it just wasn't worth it.